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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
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Check Scribd. Lots of books, audiobooks, documents etc. and no limits on how many items you can check out at the same time.
Hah, I like audiobooks but usually only listen to them in a speakerdock upstairs at bedtime, and invariably have to rewind next evening from an overoptimistic timer setting. So my mind doesn't just wander from audiobooks, it plainly checks out! I've ended up having to lay hands on the ebook or hard copy counterparts of some audiobooks because I really did want to pay them the full attention I thought they were due. The other problem I have with audiobooks sometimes is that I like the book, have read it, want to get an audio version but can't stand the narrator...
Right now I'm reading in ebook format The Cat's Table, Michael Ondaatje's novel about a three week journey by ship in the 1950s of an 11 year old kid from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to England to be reunited with his estranged mother. I always end up admiring the workmanship of well written stories that have the characters confined in some way -- a boat, a train etc. -- and yet manage to convey the sweep and influences of their lives elsewhere and in previous times, or even in flashbacks to once only imagined futures, while focused on their behavior during the current journey. The book is more inside the heads of the characters than some of Ondaatje's other writing. I thought that suited the narrative thread of the work and the sheer mechanics of liberating the reader from the confines of the ship.
In this book the kid and two sidekicks of roughly the same age take the spotlight--as the ship traverses the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Red Sea, the Mediterranean and finally the Atlantic Ocean-- although they have been relegated by the ship's steward to "the cat's table", the far opposite in status of the captain's table in the dining hall of a passenger ship. They take advantage of their relative obscurity on the passenger list to engage in all manner of antics including spying on the lives of other passengers... which behavior of course then allows the author to provide readers various escapes from the routines of a long ocean voyage.
Ondaatje is also the author of, among other works of fiction, The English Patient. With respect to The Cat's Table, he did in real life as a child make the journey by water from Colombo to London, although asserting that the characters and adventures of the youngsters on board the Oronsayo in his novel are entirely fictional. Still, his descriptions of a trio of 11 year olds roaming around a sailing ship for three weeks --and (mostly) delighting in the risks of exceeding the norms of freedoms allowed a child on such a journey-- may suggest that Ondaatje has not invented all their experiences, and he notes that some descriptions of places and scenes referenced by the chief protagonist are colored by the author's own memory.
Sounds fascinating; I loved The English Patient (both book and movie).
Right now I'm reading this:
July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin
An account of the diplomatic crisis of the summer of 1914 following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that ultimately led to WWI. The causes of WWI I've never understood well (does anyone?) and this book is helping explain it.
July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin
An account of the diplomatic crisis of the summer of 1914 following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that ultimately led to WWI. The causes of WWI I've never understood well (does anyone?) and this book is helping explain it.
Right now I'm reading this:
July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin
An account of the diplomatic crisis of the summer of 1914 following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that ultimately led to WWI. The causes of WWI I've never understood well (does anyone?) and this book is helping explain it.
Ah now this interests me quite much! Let me know how it is. I recommend to read (if you haven’t already) the classic “The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman. It really explains the madness of that summer.
Terrific book and an excellent recommendation, one with which I heartily concur.
I have started listening to Eric Idle’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography and i have to say that , in this case, i am enjoying the narration much better than if i was reading it. It is of course narrated by Idle himself.
If I did not mention it in this thread, I have started rereading Song of Fire and Ice series, book 1, Game of Thrones..
In a fictionalized format (historically accurate) Ken Follett does a great job of examining this in Fall of Giants, the first novel in his Century Trilogy.Right now I'm reading this:
July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin
An account of the diplomatic crisis of the summer of 1914 following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that ultimately led to WWI. The causes of WWI I've never understood well (does anyone?) and this book is helping explain it.
I just went to a book sale at my local library today. Picked up:
Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Creation by Gore Vidal
I have some good summer reads
I thought My Name Is Red a superb and really interesting book; I hope you enjoy it.
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Just finished this really interesting book. As the title indicates, I learned a LOT of new things about trees that I didn't know before picking up this book.
One of the first paper books I picked up in awhile. My wife and I went to a local Barnes N Nobles and got a membership and dumped a little $ on some paper books.
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Just finished this really interesting book. As the title indicates, I learned a LOT of new things about trees that I didn't know before picking up this book.
One of the first paper books I picked up in awhile. My wife and I went to a local Barnes N Nobles and got a membership and dumped a little $ on some paper books.
I absolutely want this. I am fascinated by trees.
As a matter of fact, I just ordered some tea made with Douglas firs tips...
Edit: ordered at the library!
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Just finished this really interesting book. As the title indicates, I learned a LOT of new things about trees that I didn't know before picking up this book.
One of the first paper books I picked up in awhile. My wife and I went to a local Barnes N Nobles and got a membership and dumped a little $ on some paper books.
That sounds as though it is a most fascinating book; let me know how you find it, and I will give serious thought to ordering it should it meet with your approval.
Just started reading "Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in WWII.
Very intimate story of two enemy tankers, very well told, and a nice change from many of the other WWII history books that cover the big picture or seem a little detached even when talking about individual stories.
The writing style was initially a little different than I was used too, but quickly adjusted to it. I’ve read maybe 20 books on WWII from the publisher "Stackpole", these are all excellent books but many were originally written in German and then translated, so I had become used to that writing/translation style.
At the time this book was released, there was an American tank gunner coming up on his late 90’s birthday. A group of friends picked him up telling him they were taking him to his birthday celebration. Instead, they drove him into Boston, MA, USA where they had arranged for a working Sherman tank to be there. They got him into his tankers position and took him for a ride. I <think> it was the gunner in this book. I have to look it up again. Either way, quite a tribute.
His trilogy, "So Good They Can't Ignore You", "Deep Work", and "Digital Minimalism", is amazing. I come back to his work quite often. The various interviews for the various podcasts are also amazing.
I wish... does he say how he manages it without going off the grid or spending two weeks fine tuning a computer in a way no typical user's going to be able to manage?
Maybe I should read it before buying my next laptop and telling google about it by default within the first 7 milliseconds of net connection.
"The Churchill Factor" (2014) by Boris Johnson (aka the next British PM ).
All jokes, Brexit, and contemporary British politics aside, this is truly a wonderful, entertaining book. The book does not try to be an in-depth look into Churchill's life, but it's more an engaging conversation that you would have with a person that really knows a subject while drinking some good beer in a pub. It is pretty clear that Johnson admires Churchill, but I truly enjoyed that he doesn't pull punches even to his own friends (Johnson makes sure to clarify that modern-day Conservatives shouldn't really identify with Churchill for a variety of reasons as pretending to be one and the same with Winston's politics would be a total lie) or Churchill himself.
Ultimately, I recommend it as a light book on Winston, his characters, and some of the events that shaped his life and the world itself.
).All jokes, Brexit, and contemporary British politics aside, this is truly a wonderful, entertaining book. The book does not try to be an in-depth look into Churchill's life, but it's more an engaging conversation that you would have with a person that really knows a subject while drinking some good beer in a pub. It is pretty clear that Johnson admires Churchill, but I truly enjoyed that he doesn't pull punches even to his own friends (Johnson makes sure to clarify that modern-day Conservatives shouldn't really identify with Churchill for a variety of reasons as pretending to be one and the same with Winston's politics would be a total lie) or Churchill himself.
Ultimately, I recommend it as a light book on Winston, his characters, and some of the events that shaped his life and the world itself.
"The Churchill Factor" (2014) by Boris Johnson (aka the next British PM
All jokes, Brexit, and contemporary British politics aside, this is truly a wonderful, entertaining book. The book does not try to be an in-depth look into Churchill's life, but it's more an engaging conversation that you would have with a person that really knows a subject while drinking some good beer in a pub. It is pretty clear that Johnson admires Churchill, but I truly enjoyed that he doesn't pull punches even to his own friends (Johnson makes sure to clarify that modern-day Conservatives shouldn't really identify with Churchill for a variety of reasons as pretending to be one and the same with Winston's politics would be a total lie) or Churchill himself.
Ultimately, I recommend it as a light book on Winston, his characters, and some of the events that shaped his life and the world itself.
Yes, I really enjoyed it.